


The Path

by TakeTheShot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Storyteller (TV)
Genre: Because that's how these things work, First Kisses, First Meetings, Folk tale of sorts, Get Together, Happy Ending, M/M, No (super) powers AU, Pining, Romance, SHIELD Husbands, Some obliviousness, Supernatural/Magic Elements, and I'm powerless to fight it, but you don't need to know it to understand the story, cameo appearances - Freeform, growing up together-ish, if you know The Storyteller TV show, indulging in romantic thoughts, it might help with tone, just me writitng as one of my favourite characters ever, kind of a fairytale, learning lessons of all sorts, phlint - Freeform, typical obliviousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 17:27:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21274964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TakeTheShot/pseuds/TakeTheShot
Summary: The night might be dark and the wind might be howling but The Storyteller has a story for you, to hold back the shadows.It starts with a Path. This Path lay along the outside edge of the churchyard, between the holy ground and farmland and nobody could say where it went because nobody ever walked it, nobody dared. But, where there is a Path there is generally a boy. His name was Phillip and he went by Phil, which was a name that was shorter and yet bigger and that suited him better, though he had still to grow into it. He went down the path for the first time when he was nine. And to find out what he found down there, you'd better pull a chair up to the fire. And listen...A Phlint tale, as told by The Storyteller.(its not essential to know The Storyteller TV show to enjoy the Phlint story, it's just there as a fun framing device. You'll still understand the shippy part, promise)





	The Path

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BeneficialAddiction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeneficialAddiction/gifts), [twangcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twangcat/gifts).

> For BeneficialAddiction and Twangcat, who have both found themselves walking new paths recently. May you find nothing down them but new adventures, safe harbours and wonderful stories x
> 
> If you know the tv show Jim Henson's 'The Storyteller' (and you absolutely should! Please, look it up if you haven't seen it!) then I hope you'll enjoy this as my tribute. I just adore the show and the way The Storyteller speaks to his audience as he weaves his tales always captivates me as much as the stories do themselves. So, when a fairytale-ish Phlint idea dropped into my head I couldn't resist giving it to him to tell to you. And of course, it wouldn't be right without Dog there to have his say as well. I hope very much that the tone of this works for fellow fans.
> 
> If you don't know the show or characters, that shouldn't matter to your understanding of the Phlint story itself. All you need to know is that The Storyteller lives in a ruined tower with The Dog, his rather grumpy canine companion, who can, of course, talk. He knows a story for every occasion, has just enough wisdom and sass to make the telling of them interesting and this time wants to tell you about two men he knows, how they met and became friends and...well. You'll just have to listen...
> 
> Writing this was such fun and I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did x

The wind whistled, howling hard round the tower, creeping in through the cracks around the stained glass windows and setting the crows to cawing, but the fire burned hot and strong as always, flaring showers of bright sparks where the man bent to prod at it with the poker. He might have been old, might have been young, might have been somewhere in between, it was hard to tell underneath the wild shock of hair, the long tattered and patched robe he wore, the lines on his face that looked at once like deep wrinkles but also like simple laughter. Whichever was truer, he was intent on his work, adding another log, poking at it some more and only looking up when the door creaked open and a large brown dog hurried in. Pulling his robe tighter round himself against the chill that followed the dog, the man replaced the poker on the hearth and eyed him curiously,

“Back so soon? I thought you were going for a walk?”

“I was,” Dog answered crossly, “I did.”

The man nodded, “Not a very long one then.”

Reaching the fire-side, Dog flopped down heavily and crossed his shaggy paws, laying his head on them. “If you must know, I chased a rabbit, and it tricked me.”

“Really?” the man nodded again, “Tricked by a rabbit. Extraordinary. How exactly?”

“It cheated. It went through the gate.”

“Which gate?”

“You know,” Dog answered darkly, “that gate. _The_ gate.”

“Ah,” Wandering over to his armchair, as tattered and wildly patched as himself, the man sat, pointedly ignoring the puffs of dust that flew from the upholstery as he did so, and nodded, “I see.”

The fire crackled into silence for a moment and then, “I hate that gate.” Dog exclaimed grumpily, “It doesn’t even go anywhere. Stood in the middle of a field. Gateway to nothing. We should just take it out.”

The man raised an eyebrow, a spectacular effect given that he had quite the eyebrows to raise, “Ah,” he said, “but if we did that, the anywhere it doesn’t go might just come here, mightn’t it? Best to leave it alone. Or…” he arched the eyebrow now, directly at Dog, “…you could try going through it.”

“No.” Dog shook his head emphatically. “Nobody ever got anything good from going through gates like that.”

The man leaned well back, “You might be surprised. Why I knew a man once….”

“Ohhhh, it’s a story is it?” Dog interrupted, sniffing, pride still bruised from his run-in with the rabbit, “Well don’t bother. Not everything in the world has to be a story, even if you are The Storyteller.”

Baulked, The Storyteller stopped, “No?”

“No.” With an air of finality, Dog rolled on his side, belly to the fire, and closed his eyes.

The Storyteller huffed, “Alright then.”

“Alright.”

“Suit yourself.”

“I will.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

The wind whistled again, making the stonework sing as they met each other in stubborn silence, the kind that can only be built between two very long-term, very bosom companions. Fire crackled, they both breathed and no-one spoke. Until,

“It is a shame though,” The Storyteller said, quietly, casually, picking at one of the many threads that dangled from his sleeve, “that you don’t want to hear this particular story.” He picked some more, into the silence, “It has a ball in it.”

Dog’s eye cracked open, “A ball?”

“Oh yes.” 

“Well why didn’t you say so?”

The Storyteller shrugged, “I just did. But being as you’re not interested, I won’t tell it.”

“I’m probably _not_ interested.” Dog said, rolling back onto his belly and shuffling forward until his nose brushed the trailing hem of The Storyteller’s robe, “But the wind _is_ very loud. Why don’t you tell it anyway, just to drown the noise. And I’ll see.”

“Very well then,” The Storyteller agreed, trailing his hand low to brush Dog’s head, “Let’s see.”

>>===>>

This story comes from long ago, or last week or perhaps from always.

It starts with a path. 

Not just a common or garden ordinary ‘walk from here to church and say hello to the neighbours’ type of path. Oh no. This path was one of _those_ places. You know the sort. Every village has one, or more than one perhaps. A field you mustn’t cross or a well that mustn’t be drawn from. A gate that mustn’t be walked through or a house that mustn’t be entered. A wood or a lane or simply a corner which becomes that corner and then The Corner. A place where nobody goes, even if nobody knows why. Somewhere that raises the hairs on the back of your neck and freezes the blood in your veins, or else sends it pounding. Somewhere where you’re sure that somebody is watching. A place that feels…edgeless. Infinite. Dangerous and wild. That calls with that same voice we all have inside that whispers once you’re at the ledge that it surely can’t be that far down. That you might just fly…

In this village it was a path. That path. The Path. Cool and wooded, overshadowed by overhanging branches, green and lush underfoot it lay along the outside edge of the churchyard, between the holy ground and farmland and went…

Well. 

Nobody could say where it went because nobody ever walked it. Nobody ever. Adults told themselves that the little shiver, the gripe they felt if they glanced down it was simply the weather. Or an ill-humour. Too long spent in the sun. Bad beef at dinner. They told themselves the Path had nothing to do with it. It was just a path. 

But they remembered.

They remembered the stories that the children still told, stories that had been passed down and passed down, each of them as wild and unlikely and as possible as the next… The Path led nowhere and if you walked it you’d walk it forever lost to time and men and gods. A witch lived at the end of The Path, or else a great beauty and she would curse you or bless you, as the mood took her. Walk The Path and you’d lose a hundred years and come out the other end into a world you didn’t know only to turn to dust there. Or that walking it was a quest that could bring treasure and fame. The devil waited for you at the end. Or your heart’s desire. Those kind of stories.

The children shared them and made each other squeal in horror and delight and the adults smiled and called them silly and then they shuddered down in their bones with almost-lost feelings they couldn’t name. And everyone felt the push and pull of it like the need to touch tongue to loose tooth and see if it still hurts, the recoil when it does. 

The need to touch it again.

So, The Path lay quiet and green and inviting and dark and foreboding at the same time and nobody ever walked it. Or tried to close it either. The Path, by unspoken agreement, was left well enough alone and the people of the village knew that they were wiser to do so. Safer.

But, where there is a Path, my dears, there is generally a boy. And where there is a boy, there is generally a ball.

And so there was.

His name was Phillip but he went by Phil, which was a name that was shorter and yet bigger and that suited him better, though he had still to grow into it. And he went down the path for the first time when he was nine.

It wasn’t his fault really, really, it was the ball. Phil was running home to his mother for dinner, a little bored, a little restless, a little clever-boy-in-a-small-village and a whole lot nine-years-old, throwing and catching his ball as he went. Throwing and catching, throwing and catching and then, bump! His toe hit a stone in the road, he missed his catch and off went the ball, off the road and down The Path.

Because sometimes that’s all it takes, one stone in the road and the whole world is different.

Phil watched his ball roll out of sight and for a second he considered not following it. He could already hear his mother calling and the soup was bound to be hot and the bread warm and he knew the stories as well as any other boy, who knew what would lie down there if he took his feet that way? But it wasn’t just _a_ ball he’d lost, it was his _favourite_ ball, made of fine leather in bright colours, the last gift given to him by his sea-captain father before the news came that his ship was lost and Phil wasn’t supposed to take it out of the house. If he was late to dinner his mother might perhaps be angry, but if he lost the ball she would definitely be sad and that would be worse. 

Besides, the Path had a call, oh yes, Phil could hear that just as well as anyone else, better even, and it sounded just a little like adventure and a little perhaps like his name.

So off he went, quick as twinkling, off the road, running under trees, over grass, through shadows and sun-rays that hadn’t felt the touch of feet in heaven knows how long, grinning and still looking out for his ball. Which he found, quite unexpected, in a clearing at the end of the Path, being juggled with several others by a stern looking grown-up, a man dressed head to toe in purple. Leggings, tunic, shoes, all purple. Phil was a little surprised because this didn’t look like the witch from the stories, or the great beauty, never mind his heart’s desire.

“Hello,” the man said, sending the colourful balls, each looking exactly like the one Phil had followed, round and round in a perfect, dizzying, circle, “I don’t get many visitors down here. Lost something have you?”

Phil watched the colours spin and spin, six, seven, eight of them, very impressed, “Yes,” he nodded, “um…thank you. One of those. Only, I don’t know which.”

The man grinned, a grin that lit up the clearing like the new oil lamps Phil’s mother bought for winter, flashed like sunlight on the water in the jam jar he’d caught the sticklebacks in, and changed his face entirely, “Oh, they’re all yours.” The man held out his hand for the balls to drop into, and they did, thump thump thump, six, seven, eight, nine, all into the same palm and when they stopped thumping there was only the one ball there. He held it out to Phil, still grinning, “See?”

Phil found that he was grinning back, half in amazement and half just because whoever this was, they made him want to grin, “That was amazing!”

The man cocked his head, “Juggling?”

“Yes. And the erm, the more balls thing?”

The man laughed, “Ah well…How about we just start with the juggling?”

So Phil nodded and the man handed back his ball. Then he rummaged in his tunic and, bringing out a set of colourful soft bean bags (“easier for beginners,”) taught Phil to juggle until he could send them flying and spinning from hand to hand almost as well as the man himself. It was a joy and a pride and Phil smiled so wide that it seemed like it might meet at the back of his head.

“You learn fast.” the man nodded in approval, “As if you were born to it.”

“Do you know any other tricks?”

The man nodded again, such a sparkle in his eye, “I do.” and then his grin faltered, “But weren’t you meant to be heading for your dinner?”

Reminded, and late, oh, so very late, Phil scrambled to his feet. “I could come back?” he said, feet already making for the Path, the way back to the road and the rest of his life, “Tomorrow? Will you be here?”

The man huffed and quirked the corner of his mouth, “I’m always here.”

“Well, then I’ll come back.”

“Alright then.” The man agreed, though he didn’t sound much like he believed it.

Phil was halfway out when he had a sudden thought and turned round, “What’s your name?”

There was no answer for a long, long time and then, “You can call me Hawkeye.”

“I’m Phillip, Phil! And I’ll come back!”

And off he ran, back to home and to his mother, who was angry, especially when Phil couldn’t tell her where exactly he’d been, nine-year-old boys knowing of course when to keep their secrets. But in the end it was the kind of angry that had started to slip into worried so she still fed him his dinner for his supper then sent him to bed with a clout and a hug and extra chores for tomorrow and Phil slept like a boy with a secret adventure.

Now. Our Phil meant to go back, he really did, but the next day had the chores and the one after that church and the one after that school and life is a tide my dears that picks you up and carries you where it likes, often quite against your will and preferences. And that tide can wash away yesterday just as much as it drives you toward tomorrow, leaving you with smooth sand and half-remembered footprints. So it was on this occasion, and that was why it happened that the next time Phil ventured down the Path, he had just turned fourteen.

Fourteen, out of school for the summer, bored of chores (though he was a hard worker and a good help to his mother) and bored of books, (though he was an excellent student). Fourteen and looking for somewhere just to have a day of his own, for somewhere that wasn’t everywhere he’d already been, Phil mooched around the village until he found himself at the end of the Path. Something about it tickled his memory and though he wasn’t quite sure what, it glowed in the back of his mind, an indistinct feeling of joy, and once again his feet seemed to go walking that way without him having made the decision.

Imagine his surprise when he entered the clearing and there again was the man in purple, this time sitting on a stump and whittling away at a piece of wood, the knife flashing silver in his hand. Phil, the tickle turning into a torrent, stopped dead in his tracks.

“Hawkeye,” he breathed and the man’s head came instantly up. He jumped to his feet,

“Phil!” and he sounded so pleased to see him, so astonished, that something in Phil lurched and sang even as his mouth hung open, “You came back! What took you so long?”

Phil blushed, “I didn’t think you’d actually be here. I was nine and you were…I thought I’d made you up,” he admitted, and Hawkeye laughed.

“Nope.” he said, spinning in a circle, “Real as real, me. But never mind, you’re back now. Come and tell me, what’s new with you?”

So Phil went and sat by Hawkeye and it was strange because he was still the same, all tall and purple, and his smile was still the same, all lamplight and sunsparkle, and yet, he wasn’t as big. Phil came up his shoulder now where before it had only been his elbow and it was definitely strange. But then Hawkeye managed to pull a tablecloth out of nowhere and fill it with food from somewhere else and Phil decided perhaps height wasn’t the strangest thing. They ate and they talked and Phil described his teachers and classmates in excruciating detail until Hawkeye snorted and then laughed and Phil felt himself to be ten-feet tall.

When the food was all gone and cloth shaken out and put back nowhere, Hawkeye turned to Phil with the bean-bags in his hands,

“How’s your juggling nowadays?”

It was good. Phil knew it was good because he’d practised here and there, even when he hadn’t been certain how he’d learned what his hands knew, but he was fourteen now, almost a man, and full of a boy’s pride. He wrinkled his nose, “I’m too old for juggling.”

“Really?” Hawkeye cocked his head and the sunlight in the clearing faded a little, as if a cloud was passing over the sun, even though the canopy of trees above them mostly made a nonsense of the thought. Then he brightened again and so did the sun, sparkling now off the thin silver tangs suddenly in his hands, “Even if we do it with knives?”

Fourteen is fourteen and pride is pride but knives are knives and, as it turned out, Phil was pretty good with those too. Not excellent, nowhere as good as Hawkeye who could shave the edge of any leaf on the tree behind him without even turning, but by the time Phil’s arms tired and with Hawkeye’s advice on stance and aim and breathing and his steady hand guiding, he could land a knife tip down in a target five times out of ten.

Hawkeye clapped him on the back as he twirled the knives away, “That’s good again Phil, bit more practise and you’ll be one of the best.”

“Really?” Phil grew another ten feet.

Hawkeye smiled again, “Really.”

“I could come back tomorrow,” Phil offered, “If you’ll be here?”

The question seemed to puzzle Hawkeye, and he frowned, “Told you already didn’t I? I’m always here.”

“Not always.” Phil said, confused “You can’t be here _always_.”

“I can.” Hawkeye settled himself down against his tree stump, long legs and purple shoes stretched out in front of him, “Not much choice at the minute.” 

For indeed, as he explained, he’d had an argument with a certain red-headed sorceress of his acquaintance about some play with star-crossed lovers making grand sacrifices that she said was beautiful and inspiring and that he said was unrealistic nonsense and next thing he knew he was sitting in the clearing, a stern admonishment that he would have to learn his lesson ringing in his ears. “So here I am.”

Phil was concerned, naturally but Hawkeye waved it off, “She’ll come around and come back for me soon, she always does. And it’s not so bad here, especially now I’ve got good company at last.” And he winked at Phil.

The idea that he could be good company to someone as interesting as Hawkeye pleased Phil so much that his chest puffed out at least three sizes. “I will come back tomorrow then, I will.”

And he did.

What followed for them was a long, hot summer, in fact several summers, full of games and tricks, talks and tumbles and good company. Hawkeye taught Phil how to hit the target ten times out of ten and Phil brought to life with particular accuracy the web of all the people and gossip of the village. Phil showed Hawkeye the books he studied, the maps he collected, the codes and ciphers he used to write his diaries so that his mother wouldn’t be tempted to read them (because she was a good mother, but a mother is a mother after all) and Hawkeye helped him to test and twist them until they were even more unbreakably devilish. Hawkeye would weave fantastic pictures of the castles and knights and quiet places he’d been in his yesterdays and Phil did the same for the places he was going to go to, the cities and the schools he would attend when he grew, the good deeds he was going to do, his big dreams for his tomorrows. On quieter days Phil learned how to stand so still that he could hardly be seen, how to find Hawkeye doing the same no matter how he hid and they kept score until the numbers on each side grew so high that it didn’t matter to either of them any more. They turned somersaults and traded punches, shared stories and bruises, walked on their hands and acted out plays and talked and talked and the waters of months and days lapped gently at their feet until Phil was eighteen and he could look Hawkeye right in the eye. 

On the day that Phil stormed down the Path, red-faced and tight with frustration, Hawkeye let him be until he’d thrown enough knives into enough targets that the edges of the blades and his anger were both blunted and Phil was able to spill his tale. Of Audrey, a village girl, who, after he’d taken her hand and she’d let him and after he’d kissed her and she’d let him do that too, had laughed.

“She said,” Phil threw the words with his knife, his face flaming hot, “That I had no idea what I was doing kissing girls.”

Hawkeye stuck his hands in his pockets, “And?”

“And,” Phil threw again, “She’s right. I _don’t_ have any idea!”

“Pffft” Hawkeye scoffed, “kissing girls is easy enough to do. Nothing to get worked up about.”

The blade thumped home, “You’ve kissed girls?”

“Sure,” Hawkeye grinned, sparkling, “a few.”

Phil whirled on him, “Show me how it’s done?”

So Hawkeye taught him that too and Phil found that kissing girls wasn’t all that he was interested in after all. And that was just another thing that they had in that clearing filled with long hours of sunshine, in their gentle pool, light and easy and simple. Give and take, show and learn, the pair of them floated together, close as two friends ever were, and let the days ripple away under them.

But, the tide is never far away you know, and outside that safe harbour the currents are always swirling. And a ship in the harbour is safe, my dears, but is that what ships are for? You and I both know that it isn’t.

And Phil, knife-thrower, map-reader, that restless nine-year old, that proud fourteen-year old, that frustrated eighteen-year old was now almost twenty and longing for the feel of the deck under his feet, the wind in his hair and a horizon larger than the borders of the village. 

“I have to go.” Phil said one day, school acceptance letter clutched in his hand, head pillowed in Hawkeye’s lap, “I can’t just stay here forever. There’s not…enough. I just can’t.”

“I know that.” Hawkeye answered quietly, sighing heavily, trailing his fingers through Phil’s hair, “It would be a waste if you didn’t. I know you have to go.”

And Phil, who had been thinking the deep thoughts of someone about to ask the most important question of his whole life, said, “Come with me?”

But Hawkeye couldn’t, could he, and he said so, and Phil didn’t see why not and he said so and hard words were exchanged both ways. Hard words thrown like hail under the darkening, thunderous skies of the clearing, the looming skeletons of the trees. Words about going and staying, about leaving and being left and about never coming back, and for the first time a cold wind blew across them. When Phil stormed back up the Path, lightning followed his footsteps, the sunrays all gone out.

Phil did not sleep. All night, the lightning flashed, the clouds rolled, his words came back to haunt him. Over and over he heard them and by the time the sun came up he knew where he’d gone wrong. And then he ran. 

Hawkeye was sitting on his stump again when Phil reached the clearing, sitting and miserably tossing a bean bag from hand to hand under a grey mist of drizzle. When Phil skidded to his knees on the damp grass, he looked up.

“I realised,” Phil said, “And I’m sorry. Can’t is not the same as won’t.”

“No,” Hawkeye answered slowly, “It isn’t.”

“So, if it’s not won’t, if it’s can’t, tell me how to make it into can. There has to be a way. You’ve told me enough stories, there’s always a way.”

Hawkeye sat silent for a long time, a statue, and then, “There is,” he said, “even in that mood she knows the rules, but you won’t know it. You can’t.”

“I can.”

Hawkeye shook his head, “You can’t.” he breathed deep and Phil was afraid, “For me to be able to leave, you need to say my name.”

Phil couldn’t help it, “But that’s easy!” he laughed, relief lifting his shoulders and his heart, “Your name is _Hawkeye_.”

A great sound punched across the clearing, the ringing of some silent, invisible bell that tolled and tore right through Phil’s gut and rolled Hawkeye into a clenched, gasping ball. When Phil could breathe again, he retched, “What was that?”

Hawkeye uncurled, slowly, and his face was streaked with tears, “A guess,” he choked, half a laugh and half a cry, “An official guess. A wrong one.”

“But,” Phil protested, “your name _is_ Hawkeye.” 

“No,” Hawkeye shook his head, “I told you that you could _call_ me Hawkeye, but it isn’t my name.” 

“Then what is?”

Hawkeye’s laugh was bitter and low, “I can’t tell you, can I? You’d have to find it. And you won’t.”

“I will.” Phil was quite determined, “How many guesses do I get?”

“Three.” Hawkeye said, “It’s always three, isn’t it? But don’t.”

“I will.” Phil said, walking away, “I will.”

He was a clever boy, our Phil, a well-read man, and the challenge tugged at his memory. Something from his childhood, from a night long ago when his mother had read to him, had read… As soon as he reached home he emptied his mother’s bookshelf and read and read and read until his eyelids drooped and his back was sore, but he found the answer he was looking for and he tore the page out and took it with him back down the Path again, running most of the way, his step all confidence, all bounce.

As soon as he reached the clearing and saw Hawkeye, Phil, so sure of himself, so proud, waved to him and called out in a high and ringing voice, “Your name is Rumplestiltskin!”

The soundless thunder rolled again and the ground heaved, sending Phil to his knees, squeezing his eyes closed. When he could open them again, Hawkeye was kneeling beside him, pale as a ghost. He smiled, but it was a twisted thing, with no twinkle, “Good guess.” he chuckled, wryly, “Very clever. But this isn’t that story.”

“Damn,” Phil swore, then pushed himself to his feet, for he was still determined, “No matter. I still have one guess left.”

“Don’t,” Hawkeye said, still on the floor, “You mustn’t. Don’t.”

Well, and we know why, don’t we my dears? And so did Hawkeye. Third guesses are tricky things at the best of times, spells are hard to lift, no matter their original intentions and they sometimes get quite away from their casters. On the other side of the third guess always lie the consequences and if Phil guessed wrong again, perhaps Hawkeye would have to stay in the clearing forever. Or perhaps they’d change places and Phil would be trapped there in his place, or perhaps in the end it would be something darker, something worse.

“Doesn’t matter.” Phil, informed of all this, said, “I’m still going to work out your name. If I have search every book in the world.”

“It’s not in books!” Hawkeye cried, “It’s not out there to be _read_. It has to be _found_. And if you haven’t by now then you mustn’t…No. No, it’s too big a risk Phil. You can’t. You have your mother, your school to go to, your whole life, all those dreams. You can’t waste it here, on this, on me. You can’t. I won’t let you.”

Phil’s mind whirled and screamed. He thought over every conversation with Hawkeye that he could remember, everything they’d taught each other, everything they’d been, were, but though something rang sweet on the edge of his tongue, the name would not come. It did not matter. His hands clenched into hard fists as he stood his ground against the rising swell, “You can’t stop me. I don’t care if there’s a risk, and I’ll look as long it takes.”

Hawkeye’s face crumpled, eyes squeezed tight shut, and he turned away his shoulders slumped. “Alright,” Phil heard him mutter, quietly, bleakly, bitterly, apparently addressing no-one, “alright Tasha, I get it, alright? I get it. You were right, I see your point. I learned the lesson. Thank you _very_ much.”

He raised his head again and when he turned his eyes were burning dark, hard enough that Phil took a step back, and Hawkeye’s mouth twisted in a lightning smirk, all blaze and no shine, “Oh Phil.” he drawled, “Poor, simple Phil. Don’t you get it? Fine. If I have to I’ll make it plain for you. I don’t _want_ you to go looking. Really. Why would I want you to? What would happen if you found it? I’d go out there? With _you_?” Hawkeye scoffed, as if the idea were the silliest thing he’d ever heard, “What on earth for? No.” he shook his head, “I’ll be fine here. I was fine before you came, and I’ll be fine after you’re gone. Stop being so naive. You’re not a boy now. Let’s face it, we’ve had a good run, it was fun but we’ve reached our end. So, off you go and have your adventures and leave it there. Leave me alone.”

The clouds rolled on that last word, the wind howled and the sand was snatched away from under Phil’s feet. He rocked, the world gone hollow beneath him as the current pulled and sucked at his foundations. “What?” 

“You heard me Phil. Get going. Go on. Don’t come back.”

“You don’t mean it.”

Hawkeye gave Phil one long look, a look that scoured the very heat from his bones and left him shivering, and then, he turned his back on him. His next words had almost the power of that soundless bell as he spoke into the thick shadows creeping out from under the trees.

“I do.”

What else was there to do? Head reeling, stomach sick, Phil turned and made for the edge of the clearing, back to the Path, the grass crackling white under his feet. At the very edge he paused and his breath came in clouds into the frigid air when he shouted, “I don’t know it. But I will. And then I’ll come back.”

Hawkeye did not turn. “Don’t.” he said and it burned, burned cold and hard and final and it felt like goodbye.

Phil ran. He ran and ran and ran and as he ran he felt his heart hollow, emptying out like a box left tipped open allowing precious things to be lost, draining until at last the lid slammed shut and left him with a bare casket, a void where his happiness had been. And then he ran some more. 

The next day, Phil left the village. And the Path, when he passed, was dark and weed-choked and for the first time in his life, did not call.

>>===>>

It was good, Phil’s school, his new life. It was a fine place, far away on the edge of the sea, with strong scholars and wise tutors and Phil did well there. In amongst the books and scrolls he and his hollow heart worked hard, and caught the praise of many teachers, many students. He would have been proud if he’d had anywhere to put it. Phil studied, and he worked and he thought often of a path and of the spin and whirl of bright colours, and how far away it seemed, how long ago. And he asked at first, everywhere he went, everywhere and everyone if they’d heard of a man, all in purple, with a smile like lamplight and sunshine and if they knew his story, knew his name. But nobody ever had, or did, and Phil had nothing to take back with him, nothing to combat the darkness that had been in Hawkeye’s face, that frost in his voice. So he didn’t go back and no word ever came to tell him that he should. Each blank page, each dead end hit hard, knocking hollow against the empty chest in his chest and eventually he stopped asking. Stopped thinking. Took the cold and the frost and the dark at their word and let the cloud cover the sun. Though he never could forget.

Before long, Phil’s work caught other attentions and soon enough there came a man with an eye-patch and an interest in Phil’s abilities, his knack with codes, his aim, his knife-skills, the way he could stand in a room and have no-one know he was there to hear their conversation, the way he could repeat that conversation back later word for word. Phil was, the man with the eyepatch said, just the kind of man they were looking for, and he would be able to see those horizons he’d always dreamed of, make that difference he’d always wanted to make, Phil could be his one good eye.

And so the tide came again and our Phil went for a soldier, of a sort, for there are always wars being fought, aren’t there? Every time and everywhere even if most of us don’t always know it. Phil dealt in battles, briberies, skirmishes, secrets, assassinations and assignations, murders and mysteries and he had everything he’d ever worked for and he was a long, long way from home.

There were people of course. People he found and who found him, troops who became team who became friends who became family. A tiny woman with enormous courage and skills to match. A big man with a bigger heart. One brave soldier with the widest grin, a girl who contained so, so much more than she knew and a pair of young geniuses so closely interwoven, so stitched together that it was near impossible to tell where the cloth of one ended and the other began. They were good people and they became his people. Phil was able to fold them into himself, to wrap them round his heart like blankets and it was good, warm. But inside, in the centre, he knew that he was still empty. And despite everything he had found for himself the longing of the not forgetting, the hollowness of the never thinking grew and grew until sometimes he felt quite, quite lost with it.

It was one of those days, a long, heavy day of dark work when Phil was making his way to his lodgings in a middle-of-nowhere town that his eye was caught by an unexpected whirl of colour. Across the town square it glowed, bright shades flashing, spinning balls flying round and high, up and under, in patterns he knew as well as his own face in the mirror. A juggler then, an expert, and Phil’s whole stomach clenched. But when he got closer, it was a woman, clever-eyed, and quick limbed, long blonde braid spilling out from under her cap. Her act was mesmerising, all tricks, turns and tumbles and it drew a large crowd that Phil soon found himself part of, watching the way she tossed and spun with an empty ache in his empty chest that threatened to choke him. Eventually, the performer turned a particularly impressive flip and, throwing herself upright, held out a hand and declared to all the ladies and gentlemen present that her show was, in fact, a gift, but that she would be pleased to offer them free advice for nothing more than the price of a penny. This got a few laughs from the crowd of course and soon coins were twinkling their way through the air towards her waiting palm. For every one she caught, and that was all of them, she dispensed some peck of wisdom; good things come in small packages, beware the knock of the crooked man, there is a time to sow and a time to lie fallow, never look a gift horse, you know the sort of thing. And then she came to Phil. 

Now, our Phil didn’t have a penny to offer. What he did have was a single solitary silver, destined to provide his evening meal, a softer bed, perhaps a drink to soften the hard edges of a long and weary day and he had been looking forward to it. Oh, indeed, he could almost taste it. But, to his mind a performance such as hers had been deserved what reward he could give and so he threw it to her with a good grace and what smile he could manage. The woman caught his token, bit it and, finding it good, slipped it into her pocket with a nod. Then she stood and looked at Phil, just looked, but it seemed as if she could see right through to his blood, his bones, to the space in his chest where her eyes lingered while he fought the urge to squirm. And then she nodded again.

“A true coin.” she said at last, “A rare thing. So for you, just this. Sometimes, the very best way to go forward is to go backwards.”

Phil frowned but she held up a hand, “Consider it.” and quite to his own surprise this time Phil found himself nodding. A shiver ran through him then and he turned away from the crowd, towards the warmth of fire and bed. Halfway across the square Phil felt eyes on his back so he looked round again in time to see the woman wink and then bow to the crowd with a flourish, whipping off her cap to show the red, red roots of her hair. 

“Consider it.” she had said, and consider it Phil did. He considered it with each bite of his meal, and each sip of his drink, both of which were smaller than he might have chosen. He considered it by the glow of the fire and considered it up the dark stairs and all the way into his room. He considered it against doubt and frost and fear and finally, pulling the thin clothes of his bed up and over his shoulders, Phil let himself understand the wisdom he had been offered. 

And for the first time in a long, long while, he looked backwards.

In the morning, when Phil woke with a smile on his lips, surfacing from a dream of sunlight and smiles, of purple and perfection, he found on his pillow a piece of a name. It was a tiny, shining star of a piece, just a fragment, a broken edge that called out to his fingers and when he picked it up and held it close, it sang to him. Well now, it had been a long time and a place far away, but he couldn’t let it escape, could he? So up he lifted the lid of his hollow heart and slipped in the piece of name, snug and cosy, until he could collect the rest of it. 

Which he could, because now that he knew the shape to look for, the pieces of it were everywhere. Always had been. 

Phil found one huddled and curled under a fresh-killed corpse, plucked another from the dazzling blue of a clear summer sky. One he tasted on the lips of a beautiful girl and one he gathered from the warmth of her brother’s arms. One slid slick and dripped red along the edge of his sword, another shone bright comfort in the depths of a torch, the first light after a long night in the black. Pieces sounded in music, laughed in jokes and clicked against his teeth in the depths of good bowls of soup. The smell of the sea gifted him one, and the sounding of battle horns shivered one down his spine. They dropped with the leaves from the trees, rose from the depths of wells, whispered in corners and were passed to him with the cheer of first greetings and the shudder of last breaths. Pieces ran alongside his footprints and were scribbled in the margins of dusty old books and Phil collected them all. Sharp, soft, dull or shining, each time Phil found a piece of the name he kept it in his heart-box until it was full to bursting with a mess of almost answers, and no matter how often they called to him (which was all the time), how often he looked at them (which was every second) or how much he treasured the having of them (and oh, my dears more than gold he treasured them, more than breathing) none made any more sense than the rest and not one was more than another puzzle. 

Until the day that he received word that his mother was ill and needed him home. Until the day that he sat by her bed and held her pale hand as she left him, until he saw her laid to her rest and then returned to the farm to find that there she’d left the gift of another piece, a last gift of the last piece, behind her. On that day, Phil nestled it in with the rest and all at once they clicked together to make a pure and shining whole. In its light he could see the simplicity of what he had known but not known all along and he covered his eyes and wept. And then he threw back his head and laughed and laughed until all the neighbours thought him turned quite, quite mad. 

And then he ran.

The Path was overgrown, crowded out with weeds, and briars tore at Phil’s coat as he ran. Nettles stung his legs, his hands, branches whipped at his eyes and more than once he stumbled, but he did not stop, could not stop, though his breath came hard and blood ran in ribbons down his arms. By the time he pushed through into the clearing Phil was panting and bleeding, a shredded mess, but none of it mattered because there in the centre of the clearing, crumpled by the stump, head buried in his folded arms, purple somewhat faded, was,

“Hawkeye.” Phil whispered and instantly Hawkeye’s head lifted and he blinked at the ripped and bedraggled sight in front of him,

“Phil?” he breathed, “Phil!”

Phil had never been sure exactly how large the clearing was, large enough for games and small enough for talking, but in that instant it shrank entirely and Hawkeye was in his arms before he’d even blinked, his face pushed hard into Phil’s shoulder, now and finally, a good inch above his. However, there was no time to ponder on that, because one good squeeze later and Hawkeye was pushing Phil away, hard,

“I told you not to come back.” he snarled, an animal wounded, “I didn’t want you to come back. I said so.” The shadows lengthened, threatened and Phil staggered on his feet, but the shine in his full heart steadied him again.

“I had to. You didn’t mean it.”

“I _did_.” Hawkeye insisted, the lie full of cracks, the light breaking through even as he spoke it, “I have to mean it Phil, you can’t…Phil, the third guess.”

Phil held his gaze, shook his head, “I won’t use it.”

“So you’ll what? Stay here forever? I can’t let you. Oh,” Hawkeye moaned, “You should have listened to me, why didn’t you _listen?_ Don’t guess. _Don’t_. Just _go._”

“I will.” Phil said, and he stepped close to take Hawkeye’s hand. “I will go. And you’ll come with me. Because it was everywhere, you know, you were everywhere and I found it. Found you. I found your name.”

Hawkeye froze, “You didn’t.” he whispered, small as a mouse, small as the terror of hope, “You didn’t. Don’t guess Phil. Don’t.”

“It’s not a guess,” Phil insisted, all glass-sea calm, and he started to walk backwards, drawing Hawkeye after him, “I don’t need a guess. Because I found it.” The further they walked, the thicker the air got, like walking in quicksand, like walking through treacle, but Phil kept moving with Hawkeye’s hand clasped in his and Hawkeye kept following, “Or, truly, I realised I’d had it all along, since I was nine, fourteen, eighteen, nineteen, _always_, even though I didn’t know it then. And I’m sorry, so sorry that it took so long for me to find it. But I know it now. Because,” they’d reached the very edge of the clearing now, the line Hawkeye had never ever, in all their time together, crossed and still Phil was moving, “Because your name, Hawkeye, is beloved. Your name is darling. Your name, my love, is _mine.”_

And at last Phil pulled him over the line and onto the Path and there he kissed him.

There was no single bell this time but a high and joyful peal, a carillon of triumph and joy that sounded just a little like a woman’s laughter and that they barely heard through the blood rushing through them, the pounding of their bursting hearts. They kissed and laughed, then kissed again and laughed some more and then they were running, running and running together up the Path and out onto the main street where they hugged and whirled each other round in a commotion that frightened the horses and caused quite the obstacle to traffic and neither of them cared a jot.

Finally, they had to stop to breathe and Hawkeye looked up at the sky, as big and wide as the choices that suddenly lay before them, “So,” he asked, “what do we do now? Go back to your house? Become good solid farmers of the village? It’s not my usual style, but for you, I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

But Phil smiled said that no, he didn’t think that would suit them, and if Hawkeye was so inclined, Phil did have some friends he’d like Hawkeye to meet and who would be sure to have something that would keep them busy enough. And Hawkeye nodded and grinned and added that there was a certain red-head as well that he’d like to introduce Phil to, so too he was sure that they would certainly be busy enough. 

And the pair of them smiled at each other, all lamplight and sunsparkle both one and the same, and agreed that perhaps they would go home first after all, just to see if there was anything to keep them busy enough there first. 

As they walked away, hand in hand, together and free, Hawkeye said,

“Phil?”

“Yes?”

“You got my name exactly right you know. Exactly. But just for short, I was thinking maybe, Clint?”

Phil squeezed his hand, “Sounds perfect.”

So that was that, off they went, Clint and Phil, safe and sound, because sometimes you have to learn to allow for possibilities and sometimes you have to go away to see what you left behind. And they had, hadn’t they? The two of them who had braved the tide and come down the Path from different ends and found their heart’s desire at the end after all.

And, my dears, you’ll be pleased to hear, they lived happily ever after.

>>===>>

“How do you know that?” Dog grumped, stretching, “You always say that. Happily ever after. But how do you know?”

The Storyteller, caught in the middle of the yawn and stretch necessary after a good long tale, blinked down at him, “Because, my most cynical of listeners, a certain red-headed sorceress who is also of my acquaintance was at their wedding, and she told me so. And we’re not going to go doubting her word, are we?” 

He arched his eyebrow again, significantly, and Dog shifted uncomfortably, “Ah, no.” he agreed, quickly “No, we aren’t. I remember what happened last time.”

“Good.” 

The Storyteller stood and poked at the fire again, adding fresh logs until it was burning high and bright. When he was satisfied he replaced the poker and fished in a pocket, bringing something out and showing it to Dog with a flourish,

“She sent this for you, by the way.”

It was leather and patchwork, shining with bright colours. “A ball!” Dog’s tail thumped happily on the flagstones, and then he narrowed his eyes, “Is it just _one_ ball?”

The Storyteller cocked his head. “We’ll take it out tomorrow and see shall we?”

Dog agreed happily and The Storyteller settled himself back into his chair. Fire crackled once more into a soft and friendly silence and then,

“It was a good story.” Dog said.

“Well, thank you very much. The wind still hasn’t gone away though.”

“No.” Dog nodded. “So, perhaps you could tell me another?”

“Oh, certainly,” The Storyteller smiled, “just because it’s you.” 

And the flames danced as he began.

>>===>>


End file.
